Just-in-time announcements

Have you heard about “marketing ahead of the duck”? I was at FMS in early August, and people were talking about the aptly named blog post written by Jeremy Werner, my friend and manager who happens to be SBU’s corporate vice president. In that blog, he talks about how technology companies often announce products long before they’re actually available. This creates issues not only for customers who may need the product, but it also hurts the credibility of the industry we serve.

Here at Micron, we take a different approach, and it has kept my team and me exceptionally busy over the last six months. We have what I’ll call a just-in-time announcement strategy. We announce products when they’re ready for their intended use, whether it is mass production, sampling, or even for ecosystem development. I’ll offer a few recent examples.

First, on July 23 we announced the world’s fastest data center SSD, the Micron 9550 NVMe^™ SSD. While others have claimed since then that their SSDs are faster on some specs, I ask them, “Can I buy one?” The answer is usually, “Not yet.” We announced that we are sampling the Micron 9550 drive and it will be in mass production soon. If you want a sample, please contact us, so we can get you one.

Then, on July 30 we announced our Micron G9 NAND, the world’s fastest NAND in an SSD at 3.6GB/s. That’s 50% faster than competitors’ NAND being used in SSDs today. We’ve been shipping various grades of Micron G9 NAND long before now, but with this announcement, we made it clear that we’re using the NAND in one of our client drives, specifically the Micron 2650 NVMe^™ SSD. This NAND has helped us create the highest-performing value client SSD in the industry, based on industry-standard benchmarks like PCMark^® 10. This benchmark is one of the most reliable predictors of customer experience, and we beat the competition handily — the Micron 2650 scored up to 38% better than the competitions’ average scores. The combination of this NAND with our industry-leading SSD designs is not only real but also impressive. Want an SSD using this NAND? Just contact us. You can buy one today.

Then, on Aug. 5 we announced our PCIe^® Gen6 SSD for ecosystem development. We’re the first in the industry to make such a public declaration. Let’s be clear. This drive isn’t ready for deployment in a production environment. It is an SSD designed to enable the ecosystem for the coming rollout of PCIe Gen6. It will be used for testing, validation and development of Gen6 components and systems. This includes retimers, PCIe switches, network adapters, DPUs, ASICs, RAID controllers, HBAs, system silicon and much, much more. If you need one, reach out to us.

Coming back to the idea of “marketing ahead of the duck,” I saw NAND that was announced by another company last year at FMS, so I asked this year if I could get it now. The conversation went something like this. Me, “Can customers purchase your NAND now?” They said, “Not right now.” Me, “When will it be available.” Them, “Soon.” One year after the announcement, and the answer is still — just wait for it.

It’s good to be part of a team that announces products when they’re ready for their intended use. When we announce our products and technologies, it’s clear what you’re getting. I believe that’s a good way to build trust with our customers and the industry.